6.10.08

The cat is out of the bag. But, I venture to say this exercise has been somehow redeeming...illustrating than many avantegard, or experimentally driven poets, do, yes do have a sense of humour!

apparently, after checking out the site the context source is either the complete works of Emily Dickinson or Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness which, I think with the combination of choosing one or two forms, length etc the poems are the same writer, thus Erica.

5 comments:

Thanks for the sleuthing! Does it say somewhere on the Erica site that the source text comes from Emily Dickinson or Heart of Darkness? Or did you surmise it from the diction and syntax of Issue 1? If it's cited on the site, how come it's either/or?

Just curious about how much these sources explain about the texture of the poems.

see if that works, or from the Erica T. Carter link, http://etc.wharton.upenn.edu:8080/Etc3beta/

go to the menu on the left and click "Directed Poetics" here is where it is all broken down, stanza, style--grammar options include, Plath, DuPlessis, Ohara among others...it is all very cool. at least an interesting way to get source text perhaps, and make an exercise ...no?

Makes me wonder if what so many people are responding to as "poetic" or "better than Poet X's usual poetry" in this Erica-generated stuff is really the established literariness of the fragments. Gracias--you're the only poet I know of who's mentioned this. :)

I once did an exercise with a group of Kaia's students, in which a bit of trickery was at hand. During the break I had somehow accessed several published poems, from a student journal, by many in the class (Ms Sand's as well) cut the text and passed out the piles of text (fragmented but still in tact) to various students, randomly as I had had them also pick numbers from a hat) Now, once the new poems were composed participant had to read "their" poem out loud. It was amazing, esp watching for Kaia's reaction, because she picked up on the actual exercise as she heard "her" voice there, recognizing the text as her own and I think the others did too. This was back when she was still at St Mary's. But authorship, identity, influence, earmarking and therefore culling up sounds of language or lingo and therefore 'voice' certainly happens from this kind of activity. It can be quite thought provoking and really stir up all kinds of discussions and thoughts regarding authorship, ego, copyright and individual claims on language as well as influence. Erica T Carter tis no different, the computer may shuffle the words, but the program should be called Emily Conrad. What might this word generation kind of activity actually be called, we have erasure, this seems to hover on the other end of the spectrum, nearer flarf, no?